Power saving techniques have traditionally been employed in the context of portable computers (e.g. lap-top computers, hand-held computers, mobile phones, personal digital assistants, etc.). In such environments, batteries are employed which have a finite capacity. To this end, a tradeoff is typically made between preserving such battery life and enhancing computer performance. Specifically, as additional processing is devoted to accommodate performance-enhancing capabilities, battery life suffers.
In some graphics environments, more than one graphics processor is employed. They may have similar or different processing capabilities; or may work in collaboration (e.g. NVIDIA® SLI™ technology, etc.) and/or to extend functionality more independently (e.g. such as each driving different output devices, etc.). For example, a first graphics processor may be capable of providing a limited amount of graphics processing capabilities as well as using system memory, as opposed to its own dedicated memory. Still yet, a second graphics processing may be provided with more advanced graphics processing capabilities as well as its own dedicated memory.
Of course, additional processing capabilities generally come at increased cost in terms of power. There may also be secondary sources for an increase; for example, greater memory usage, data bus activity (e.g. PCI Express), or transistor leakage (which increases with increased overall silicon area).
In the past, systems such as the one described hereinabove have selected a fixed configuration at start up, based on whether the system selected the associated additional processing capabilities over power savings, etc. This decision, however, is available only at major events such as start-up, since it is difficult, if not impossible, to selectively enable/disable a graphics processor during runtime. Neither applications nor operating systems are familiar with the notion of a runtime change in graphics processor availability.
There is thus a need for overcoming these and/or other problems associated with the prior art.